Orlando woman loses $5,000 in 'pigeon drop' lottery scam

July 17, 2010|By Anika Myers Palm, Orlando Sentinel

Police are looking for the two women who took thousands of dollars from an Orlando woman in a lottery scam.

The two women targeted Genoveva Rosario, 57, in what lottery officials and fraud specialists often call the "pigeon drop scam," in which someone claiming to be an undocumented immigrant asks for help claiming a lottery prize.

The scheme preys on victims' sympathy and lack of knowledge about how the lottery works, lottery officials say.

"You can claim a prize even if you're not a citizen," explained Shelly Safford, a Florida Lottery spokeswoman.

Rosario told police that she gave the women $5,000 less than two hours after meeting them.

The incident began when a woman stopped Rosario in the shampoo aisle of a K-Mart on Semoran Boulevard just after noon Wednesday, according to an Orlando Police Department report.

The woman said she was a Mexican citizen who was in the U.S. illegally but needed help cashing a winning lottery ticket, Rosario told police. A second woman approached to offer to help.

The first woman made a phone call and then told Rosario that they needed $30,000 to cash the ticket.

Surveillance video from the store shows the three women exiting the premises.

Rosario then drove the two women she met in the store to a Fairwinds Credit Union location near Hanging Moss Road.

The second woman, who was sitting in the back seat of the vehicle, showed Rosario a large amount of money. When the women arrived at the bank, the second woman walked into the bank with Rosario, but stayed near the entrance while Rosario withdrew $5,000, according to the report.

After leaving the bank, Rosario drove to a location in the 700 block of Semoran Boulevard, where the second woman reached into Rosario's purse to get the money Rosario had just withdrawn. When Rosario asked for her money back, she was given a FedEx envelope and told that her money was inside.

The second woman then said she was going inside a store to purchase a drink for the first woman. Rosario told police she was suspicious and determined that the envelope did not contain her money.

When Rosario left her vehicle to confront the second woman, the woman was nowhere to be found. The first woman also had disappeared by the time Rosario returned to her vehicle.

Rosario could not be reached for comment Friday.

The scam happens often enough that Florida Lottery officials warned about it in June. Lottery officials noted that con artists target elderly Hispanics, but that anyone could become a victim of the scheme.

"People should remember to never redeem a ticket for someone claiming to have won a lottery jackpot or top prize," Florida Lottery director of security Doug Pitts said in a statement.

One of the women who targeted Rosario is described in the police report as a 125-pound 5-foot, 1-inch light-complexioned Hispanic woman with green eyes and brown hair. She was wearing black pants and a light blouse.

The second woman, who wore hospital scrubs, is described as a 120-pound, 5-foot, 4-inch dark-complexioned Hispanic woman who also had green eyes and brown hair. She had eyebrow and nose piercings.